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Saturday, March 18, 2017

Restoring a treasure

Last weekend I went on a little quilting retreat to my Aunt Brenda's house. She's the proud new owner of a Baileys Home Quilter on a frame. It was delivered and set up during the visit. The plan was to show her the basics about quilting on a frame, fix a couple of her sewing machines while she played with her new toy, and start piecing a new quilt pattern designed little ole me. Well she's got the basic idea of quilting on a frame but there's still lots to learn. I was able to fix one sewing machine but the other was out of time. Timing a machine is above my machine maintenance abilities. And my new quilt pattern...well it never even made it to the cutting table. We were having too much fun playing with her new quilter and shopping. Then she hit me with a big surprise. She gave me my Grandmas's(her moms) sewing machine. What a treasure since I also own my other Grannies sewing machine and will soon have my mom's also. This machine just needed a little TLC. It had been stored away for years(decades) before my Aunt took possession so I can't blame her for it's condition. For the most part all it needed was a little elbow grease.

Only a few of the accessories were missing. The feed dogs in it were coated with rubber. The rubber has turned to mush. It would stitch as long as I pulled the fabric through. It's good to know that it'll make a stitch, no timing issues! After doing a google search I found two sets of feed dogs that originally came with this machine. The rubber coated ones and the normal toothed kind. Might as well get them both so this machine will be complete. I also found a free Touch and Sew Maintenance manual. Guess what? The manual covers how to set the timing! YEAH! It's not needed now but all machines are pretty much the same when it comes to setting the timing. This will come in handy.

Luckily all of the cams, needle plates, and couple feet were still in the original accessory box. And believe it or not the owners manual was in fairly good shape also. The front cover is missing but I can live with that.

I can't wait for the new feed dogs to arrive so I can take this girl for a test drive. The funny thing about this whole story is I had one of these Touch and Sew sewing machines for years. The only difference was mine was in a table and had no cams so it did fewer stitches. It came from the high school I attended. When I purchased my new machine with all the bells and whistles in 2011 my Touch and Sew was donated to Goodwill. Well I regret that decision and have been looking to buy another on Craigslist for about 2 months. But something told me to wait. I'm so glad I listened to my inner voice. Thank you so much Aunt Brenda for passing your treasure on to me, she'll be loved and well taken care of for years to come.

How fun. I learned on my Mom's Singer Touch and Sew. Unfortunately, Mom's got worked on my someone who didn't know how to fix it and messed it up so badly Mom ended up putting it in the trash. Wish we had it back.

She sure polished up nice and spiffy! I love those older Singers. I have a 301A and love her. Your machine means even more to you since it was your grandmother's machine! Enjoy sewing on her. Maybe grandma will be watching over your shoulder as you sew?

I had a Touch and Sew too with the cams. I either traded it in on a new machine or gave it to a friend who only needed one for mending. I was going to purchase a vintae one but decided just to have memories of it.

That's a great machine. I am sure you'll love it once it's all cleaned up and you have everything you need. My Mom had a very old (the old green ones I see once in awhile), which was the one I initially learned to sew on. Then she bought this one you now have. I had a lot of fun using it, especially with the cams. I remember one was an adorable little duckie that I used a lot and it seems possibly a Scottie dog maybe? I didn't use too many of the cams for stitches since back then I was young and used mostly a straight stitch on projects. Years later I got the machine and used it often until I bought my own machine. I borrowed this one like yours to a neighbor and neglected to get it back before they moved. Since I wasn't using it often, it totally slipped my mind. I'm still angry at myself for not remembering they had that machine since it was my Mom's. Have fun using it.